Perigord and pinxtos: Petiscos and pink tiles of Porto

Once there was a campground in the heart of Porto -- or so said our map. So we traipsed to the heart in our trusty little camping car, over cobbles and medieval alleyways and through chaotic traffic only to be advised by a bunch of ancient men pondering the state of Porto affairs as they stood on that street corner, that the missing campground was no more: it was ‘Finito!’

Little old men on street corners and in tabacs and bars know everything in Europe.

After detailed instructions through Pete’s window in rapid Portuguese (who needs to learn the language?) and with much gesticulation and directional signing, we were waved off by the little old men and were, without further hazard, quickly onto wider roads, paved roads, though still they were roads rabid with reckless drivers, all headed a few kilometres down the road to the Praia (beach) where we easily found ourselves a spot for the night – and a bus stop for the morning.

As in Naples, driving in Porto is a tiny piece of insanity. Even on a bus.

The city bus drivers, the next morning, took long, wide, city-sized buses into tight, angled, narrow, dark, medieval lanes, through which they tore at terrifying speed, accompanied by loud horn warnings at blind spots --and more than once shaved their side view mirrors on stone buildings and walls, so close were they driving. Long slashing bruises and varied concreted patches on many of the stone walls and sharp corners show that not all the buses make it through unscathed.

When you sit on the Gaia side and look across the Douro River at Porto snaking her perilous way to the top of each of the surrounding hills along sharp terraces, it’s like looking at Venice from one side of the Grand Canal. Magical.

But when you spend days winding up and down her traverses and her barrios, Porto is much like a very old, very tired, madam who has lived long and hard, and perhaps too well at times. A madam old enough, now, to not even be mildly embarrassed about showing off her ragged petticoats just as readily as she tiredly flounces her pretty ones.

The wealth from Porto’s control of the spice route from India to Europe after Vasco da Gama’s expedition, along with her possession of Brazil, and the income generated after gold was discovered there – is evident in Porto's once-magnificent churches and public squares. The gold paint used in these churches must deplete the supply.

Most of the churches were built when times were good, but many, today, are ripe for maintenance before they become too terribly tattered.

One of these is the exquisite Igreja de Carmo in a very picturesque praça in Porto. This was the home of monks, built for them in the 1700s, with the gorgeous external wall of azulejos tiles added in the early 1900s. Attached, but separated by an extraordinarily narrow metre wide dwelling, is a second church: the Igreja dos Carmelitas, built for the Carmelite nuns with its gilded interior. The tiny home separating the two churches was occupied until the 20th century. Ensuring that the nuns and monks were kept separate or so says the charming tale.

Long spells of political instability and dictatorship have left much housing and infrastructure as basic. Renovated terraced apartments, sit side by side with structurally wrecked ones. Ancient shops that were outfitted once upon a century ago still operate now as then, next door to modern sharp-edged glass and glossily-tiled bars.

The same irreconcilable contrasts unhappily coexist we observed further north in Portugal.

In whole sections of windowless, decaying suburbs in the historic heart of Porto pigeons and graffiti and the smell of sewage seeping up from ancient drains are more common than structurally sound walls or healthy living spaces.

But still Porto tugs at your heartstrings. Which may explain why its centre has been declared a World Heritage site.

The atrium in the railway station is covered with brilliant bucolic scenes of the Douro countryside at harvest time-- in blue azulejos tiles. Tho’ these have been covered with some ghastly black mesh which imprisons them, distorts them, and while it was probably meant to protect them from pigeon poop, and antique tile thieves, it doesn’t. The mesh hangs, as an invitation to hoodlums, in ribbon and tatters, and barely does a job at all, except to mar.

Then, along the Douro River, there is a tiny memorial to the Porto citizens who died in March in 1809 when a frail pontoon bridge that once stood here, signed only for minimal traversing weights, collapsed as panicked city dwellers rushed to escape after hearing that Napolean’s army was entering Porto.

The bridge, even then, was barely a bridge. It was mere planks and makeshift pieces placed from one boat to the next, building a temporary walkway, allowing the few who usually needed it a way to cross the river,

But not an entire city. Never many people at once. It was never meant to withstand that.

So when the city folk, in mass hysteria, used this fragile structure to run from invaders, it collapsed like flimsy cardboard, and some four thousand poor souls drowned in minutes.

Some of these bridge boats were, no doubt, the glorious Barcos Rabello boats which, today, look like a variation on Venice’s romantic gondolas, but more substantial: longer, fatter, sturdier -- because their task was substantial: to transport cask upon cask of port wine down from the Quintas where grapes were grown on terraces above the Duoro to the wharehouses and lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia (where we were sent by the old men to camp). So beautiful are these boats. Many are lined up on the Gaia side of the river being tarted up with shiny varnish, fresh sails, new paintwork, rubs, scrubs and polishes: as next week the city and all her treasures are being dressed up for the Festival of St Joao (St John the Baptist).

This is the biggest festival of the calendar year in northern Portugal and starts on the 23rd and finishes on the 24th June (Becky’s birthday). People all over Portugal barely sleep during this festival. Instead they traipse around from venue to venue hitting each other over the head (for good luck!) with the full flowers of long-stemmed garlic plants.

These big headed flowers are being sold in giant stalks in the market this week.

Though these are modern times, and garlic flowers leave a residual smell not always palatable to the recipient, so modern day proponents of the head-banging more often than not use plastic hammers instead of the garlic flowers. Thousands of plastic hammers, which squeak when you bash someone over the head, are being sold on streets corners and in hawker bazaars ready for this festival.

A tragedy, I say. They should stick with the garlic flowers. I bashed Miss Bec over the head with one giant stalk (which looks like an agapanthus stem, but with a tinier, tighter flower) in the market yesterday well in advance of her birthday. An early present from me.

High up in the suburb of Se in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Cathedral there is an 18th century silver retable that is so dazzling and so beautiful an example of local silversmith work that a clever sacristan of the cathedral, terrified that Napolean’s invading army would make off with this city treasure, had the forethought to paint it with thick coarse gesso to mask its perfection from the evil invaders. His strategy worked. It remains there today.

Tripeiros. Tripe-eaters--Porto’s inhabitants, historically and fondly, have been called this. Because when they sent their sailors out in caravels to explore the unknown world down the west coast of Africa in the early 1500s they gave them all the meat they possessed as provisions -- and kept only the tripe for themselves.

Tripe is still a typical meal in Portugal today. We have seen it on many menus, and, yesterday, in the market we saw it made into long strings of tripe sausages. Which we chose not to taste as we had had it as children and it was not a taste we loved.

I ate the ubiquitous salt cod instead. Salt cod is famous all along the Atlantic coast, actually, but this was a typical local dish: Bolinhos de Bacalhau: one of Porto’s most famous dishes. Which is flaked salt cod, mashed with potato, onion and parsley, freshly spooned into hot oil in perfect quenelles so each bollinhos is rolled and tossed until it is golden and gently crisped, then served with rice, more potatoes, and salad. I am salivating just remembering the flavour. All for the price of €3.50 (about $A5.50).

Startlingly cheap and scrumptious.

Delicious, even when served as a petisco, similar to what their French neighbours offer as an aperitif, or the Spanish offer as tapas. A serving of petiscos (pe-tsheesh-co) is a smaller serving of a typical Portuguese meal, and you pay for it. As you do with tapas, which, can be free if it is just a bite like pinxtos ( a small breaded bite or toothpick nibble at a bar) though not free these days in more touristed areas. Originally petisco was just a chunk of bread to cover a drink on a hot summer evening, used to keep the insects from buzzing over the drink. But, over time, that has evolved to adding something on top of the bread to eat with the drink -- such an addictive habit now.

As with the Basques the Portuguese rarely, if ever, offer salt and pepper condiments. Probably because they believe that the meal is cooked ‘to the point’ – perfectly—and needs nothing added. So we learned quickly not to ask for pepper. Salt was never a problem.

We accidentally lost our Porto images, so these are borrowed. Even so, Porto's beautiful old bones remain in need of some lovingly fashioned clothes but please do not destroy the tiles. Tile decor was introduced into Portugal by Manual 1 after visiting Seville and falling in love with the moorish tiles being made there, thanks to the Arab influences along the Spanish coast. Even when scarred these tile remnants remain beautiful.